Many individuals and entities own a pool that require routine maintenance to the liquid body housed therein for the pool to be useable and/or enjoyable. More specifically, a pool that houses a liquid body of body can have viruses or bacteria that should be eliminated or reduced for the safety of those using the pool. While a filter in a pool facilitates in keeping a pool clean, to fully effectuate the same, many users add chemical agents or solutions to the pool water to kill the viruses and bacteria, or otherwise act as a sanitizer. In some instances, this chemical agent is chlorine, wherein a swimming pool ideally has at least 1 part per million (ppm) chlorine concentration and will not go above 3 ppm. To keep the swimming pool water sanitary, users are often required to routinely add the sanitizing agent to the pool water themselves or pay others to do so (which can be time- and cost-intensive).
To effectively solve the above problems, some individuals utilize motorized or floating sanitizing devices that travel around the pool, dispersing a dissolved or liquid sanitizer agent therein. These devices, however, make it inconvenient or unsafe for users desiring to utilize the pool. Additionally, many of these devices are known to cause damage to pool liners as they get caught in one location and dispense too much chlorine in a concentrated area, discoloring and even damaging the pool liner. Some users also add water-soluble tablets to the skimmer basket so when the filter is running, water will move quickly over the tablets, thereby dissolving the tablets much more quickly. The chlorinated water is then pushed into the pool through the return jets, allowing chlorine to spread evenly throughout the pool. These methods problematically result in the tablets continuing to dissolve, even when the filter is not running, thereby creating highly chlorinated and highly corrosive water that can damage the pool's equipment if left unattended. Other methods include employing the use of a chlorinator that allows a user to set a level of dispensing sanitizing agent, but these methods are often more costly, require routine maintenance to the devices, can be inaccurate as well.
One known device designed to overcome the above-described disadvantages includes U.S. Pat. No. 10,029,931 B2, issued on Jul. 24, 2018, to King. These devices include using a stacked chlorine tablets or consumable dispersant for use in pools, spas, and hot tubs. When desired for use, the user fills a container with a cartridge having a dissolvable material that enables the device to sink to a bottom of a body of liquid. When the dissolvable material dissipates, the buoyance of the device (created by the inside container or pockets within the device) causes the device to raise to the surface of the body of liquid. Problematically, however, this device does not allow it to be selectively adjusted depending on the amount of tablets to be inserted and is relatively costly to manufacture considering the multiple internal compartments and external components of the device.
Therefore, a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above.